


betty cooper is dead, long live betty cooper

by cjones7



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: (underage tag because I cannot remember how old Betty is supposed to be now), Character Study, Dark Betty Cooper, F/F, Hypnotism, Implied Murder, Psychological Horror, Selfcest, Violent Thoughts, takes place within the character's mind
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-28
Updated: 2019-12-28
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:07:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,606
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21999478
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cjones7/pseuds/cjones7
Summary: Betty once again ventures into her own mind to kill her shadow self, but this time she finds a much preferable alternative to killing a crucial part of her soul.
Relationships: Betty Cooper/Dark Betty Cooper
Comments: 2
Kudos: 18





	betty cooper is dead, long live betty cooper

**Author's Note:**

> Underage tag because I can't remember how old Betty is at this point. The sex is quite literally all in her head and also as consensual as sex with a personified part of your personality in a hypnotic state can be, so like, it's fine. Title from a line of one of my own fics because I was extremely fond of it.

And so she ventures into the dark forests of her mind at the behest of her brother, on mission of murder, on a suicide mission-- and really, there is no difference there. For her brother sent her into her own mind to kill her shadow self, and sent her unprepared and unarmed. Told her the good and the light do not fight with weapons, and did not tell her how to fight.

The woods are cold, and the path unsteady. The clearing, the first one, the girl, and the rock, and the cat. If Betty were to listen to her mentor, if Betty were to listen to Charles, if Betty were to listen to her half-brother back from the grave--she would wrestle the rock from the girl and bash her brains in. But this time she does not fight, and does not help. Instead she sits at the girl’s side and says:

“It isn’t you, is it?”

The girl smiles, as enigmatic as any old time painting, and shakes her head, an almost wistful expression in her eyes. So Betty nods, thanks her child self and, in a moment of hope, and a moment of fear, asks if she wants to come with her down the path, to help her strike the final blow. The child shakes her head, turns away, and picks up her rock.

Betty stumbles further down the path, woods closing in on her close enough to scratch her skin, and into another clearing, and this time;

There she is, black wig and lacy lingerie; holding Chuck Clayton down in the hot tub, staring rapturous at his bubbled breath surfacing. And again: Betty could attack, drown her in her turn. Or could offer to help. Or she could take the secret door number three, and ask:

“It’s not you either?”

“Of course not.” Her other-self answers, not taking her eyes off the hot tub, and the bubbles, and the boy.

“I suppose you can’t come either, then.”

“I am sorry Betty, this is a path you must walk alone.”

Betty is not surprised, but sighs anyways. She does not look at the commotion in the water. She does not comment on the inconsistencies with her reality. She walks on.

The next clearing is not a memory, and Betty is glad for it. She walks from the woods into a room at a long table. She thinks, at first, it is a table of everyone she knows, her father is there, her mother and Polly, Chic and Charles, Edgar Evernever and Evelyn, Archie and Veronica, Cheryl and Penelope Blossom, and even Jughead. And not only them. There are many, many seats, many, many faces. There is an empty chair at the head of the table. As she enters the room, her father, at the other head, speaks:

“Do you recognize us?”

A sick feeling enters her stomach and she answers, “No.”

“I think you do Elizabeth. Don’t lie to your father now.”

She does not tell him he is not her father, just her mind’s projection of him. She knows he knows, because he knows he is dead, and now just a voice of hers. She says instead: “Yes. I do.”

“And who are we?” He asks, head tilted, warm smile a mockery of fatherhood.

“You are everyone I’ve ever thought about hurting, about killing, even for a brief moment, even for a second.” She answers, never wavering her eyes from his.

“Very good, Elizabeth. Take your seat.”

And she wants, she very much wants to. In that moment her legs are leaded weights screaming out for rest, and her eyes flutter with fatigue. But she shakes her head and tell him,

“Sorry, but I’m looking for someone, and she isn’t here.”

She does not wait for this facsimile-father to answer. She walks on.

The path is getting steeper, rockier, narrower until it is barely a path at all. Her foot catches a rock and she tumbles head over feet over head again into the next and final clearing.

And it is a stark, plain room, divided in half with class. And behind that glass is another her, another Betty, identical down to the last detail, the clothes, the ponytail, the scars, sitting cross legged on the floor, head down. Identical, except for her hands, bloodied from beating on her prison walls. Betty walks to the center of the room, facing her shadow twin.

“Are you here to kill me?” The girl asks, and Betty is startled to hear her own voice from such a perfect recreation.

“It’s what I was sent to do.” She replies, stripped of all but honesty, now.

“But are you going to?” Shadow-Betty asks again.

“I don’t know. I never knew. I was never sure if killing a part of my soul was a good idea.” Betty answers, voice small, but steady.

Shadow-Betty looks up, hope in her eyes, but nothing sinister.

“Come here.” She says, phrased like a demand, asked like a question.

“The glass--”

“Is nothing to you. It is your own mind, you can pass through any barrier.”

And so--she does. She walks through the glass and it dissolves around her, walks right up to her darkest self.

Betty expects a hand around her throat, expects a fist in her face, a knife in her gut, some sign of violence, something. She gets none of that. What she gets instead, is this:

“Let me make my case.” Shadow-Betty says.

“Your case for what?” Betty-herself replies.

“The case for my continued existence, the case for my freedom, the case for me being a crucial part of your soul, your self.” Shadow-Betty tells her sister self.

“Fine. Make your case.”

“They lied to you. About what I am.” Shadow-Betty says.

“And what are you, then?”

“They told you that I am violence, that I am destruction, that I am death. But I am none of those things, not really. Elizabeth, Lizzie, Betty, Bets--that is not what I am. I am desire, I am _want_ , I am every little craving you have ever had and refused to acknowledge. Killing me won’t kill the urges, but it will kill your ability to name them, and you will lose much more than the violence in the loss of me.” Shadow-Betty says.

“....if that’s true, then what do I want?” Asks Betty-herself, voice breathier than she would want it to be, she thinks.

“So many things my beautiful girl, so many wonderful, terrible things. Sometimes you want to raze this town to the ground, sometimes you want to save every soul you see. Sometimes you want to tie Juggie to your bed and fuck his brains out with that strap on Veronica bought you as a joke. Sometimes you want to smash his self-satisfied brains in. Sometimes you want to fuck Veronica with it, instead. Sometimes you want to watch Archie fuck her, or watch Archie fuck Jughead, or have him watch you fuck Archie. Sometimes you want to kill your mother. Sometimes you want to be her very best friend. Sometimes you want to tear yourself limb from limb and remake the whole of your soul from scratch. Sometimes--” But Betty-herself cuts her off.

“Alright. Alright. I believe you. _I believe you_. Why are you here?”

“You put me here. You wanted to stop wanting.” Shadow-Betty says, a scrap of resentment in her voice.

“...And what do I want now?” Betty-herself asks, breathless now.

“I think you know, I think you know why you’re here.”

“I need to want again, don’t I? I’m too easy to control, without it. Without you. And I am so, so tired, of being controlled.” Betty-herself confesses, finally.

Shadow-Betty nods, a smile ghosting on her lips.

“...How do we do this?” Betty-herself asks.

“You have to let me slip back inside you.” Shadow-Betty answers.

“And how do we do that?”

“Like this.” Shadow-Betty says, and presses her mouth to Betty-herself’s pink glossed lips, swallowing the gasp turned into a moan. She pulls away and whispers roughly in her ear, “Listen to your body, listen to yourself, let yourself want. Let me back in.”, before sucking rough kisses into Betty-herself’s neck.

Shadow-Betty snakes her hand up Betty-herself’s shirt, under her bra, rolls her nipple between two fingers. Asks,

“Do you want this?”

“Yes.”

Shadow-Betty kisses up and down her neck, and lets her hand dance lower, trailing across her chest, her stomach, slipping under her skirt, under her leggings, brushing her clip through her underwear.

“Do you want this?”

“Yes.”

And Shadow-Betty slips her hand under her underwear to find the slick heat there, Betty-herself’s shirt open now, Shadow-Betty mouthing at her breasts, fingers teasing her entrance, thumb teasing her clit, Betty-Herself on the verge of something wonderful and terrible and still she asks:

“Do you want this?”

“Yes.”

“This is your last chance to deny me, to lock me back up, to go back to perfect, pristine Betty. Now I ask again. Do you want this?”

“ _Yes. Yes yes yes, always yes_.”

Shadow-Betty grins, at that, a beautiful and feral thing, and kisses Betty-herself roughly, shoves two fingers inside her and crooks them hard and fast, rubs her thumb against her clit and Betty-herself is gone, gone, gone.

Betty opens her eyes, sitting in a chair across from her brother. She never left the room. She knows that, of course.

“Well is it down? Is your dark self dead?” Charles asks.

Betty-herself, Betty-whole, Betty complete now for the first time in a very long time, rises from her chair, picks up a hammer from the next to her, and advances towards her brother.

**Author's Note:**

> This is kind of inspired by a half remembered youtube video I watched in middle school that supposed you only have two options when faced with a doppelgänger: fight or fuck. Also inspired by the fact I think killing any part of yourself is a terrible idea, and that Charles is not actually trying to help anybody.


End file.
